Day ousted as Trinity school board president

Trinity Superintendent Paul Kasunich, left, sits next to Scott Day at a recent school board meeting. The board ousted Day as president Thursday in a 5-2 vote.
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Trinity Area School Board ousted Scott Day as its president Thursday in a 5-2 vote.

The decision to remove the sitting board president capped months of dissention among the board, which is embroiled in a lawsuit filed by GG&C and Schweinebraten bus companies involving a $8.86 million bus contract awarded to First Student Inc.

The board will be led for the next four months by Tamara Salvatori, who served as vice president of the board until she was approved by a 5-2 vote Thursday to fill the vacancy created by Day’s removal. The board elects a new president by majority vote every December.

“I thought it was time,” said director Kerrin McIlvaine, one of the five members, along with Salvatori, Penny Caleffe, Henry Clemens and Jennifer Morgan, who voted against Day. The other members declined comment.

Day, who was elected president in December 2012, said during the meeting that no school board members approached him with complaints about his job performance as president and said that he had not violated any rules or regulations that would have led to his ouster.

He requested a hearing, which he said he is entitled to according to Pennsylvania school code.

“We’re eight months in already, so I don’t know why we need to make a change,” said Day, who believes the move was politically motivated.

Colleen Interval, who voted to retain Day and had no issues with his performance, said, “I expected it. I thought it would have happened last month, actually.”

Also Thursday, the board approved hiring Command Sgt. Maj. David Massullo as a Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps instructor at a salary of $60,896. Massullo and Ret. U.S. Army Major Erek Clacks will instruct the district’s JROTC program, in which 91 Trinity High School students are enrolled for the 2013-14 school year, according to Superintendent Paul Kasunich.

The board also tabled a vote for the district’s administrators’ salaries until its Aug. 15 meeting.